This relates to electronic devices and, more particularly, to gap sealing structures for electronic devices.
Electronic devices such as cellular telephones and other portable devices are often provided with gaskets. For example, an elastomeric gasket may be used to seal a display cover glass layer to an electronic device housing. The use of the elastomeric gasket helps ensure that dust, moisture, and other environmental contaminants do not enter the interior of a device through gaps between device structures. Keeping the interior of a device free of contaminants may help prevent damage to internal device components.
It can be challenging to effectively seal device structures using conventional gasket structures. Conventional gaskets can be prone to shearing damage when a glass layer in a display is installed in a device housing. Conventional gaskets are also compressed to fit into a gap to create a seal. If a gasket is not sufficiently large, a poor seal will be formed, allowing environmental contaminants to harm device components. If a gasket is too large, however, it may be difficult to overcome the forces produced by the gasket when assembling device structures together. Compressed gasket restoring forces may also adversely affect device reliability.
It would therefore be desirable to be able to provide improved gap sealing structures for electronic devices.